


Does Everyone Stare

by quartile



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Collegestuck, Crushes, Homestuck AU, Humanstuck, M/M, Unrequited, Unrequited Tavros/Dave
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-06-27
Packaged: 2018-07-18 12:30:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7315306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quartile/pseuds/quartile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Collegestuck AU in which Dave is a math TA and amateur photographer, Karkat is a lecturer on film in the fine arts department, and Tavros learns (the hard way) the difference between kindness and romantic interest. Slightly OOC.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Does Everyone Stare

**Author's Note:**

> Been doing nothing but reading all your Homestuck fanfics since 4/13. Time to give back. This is my first. It's a gift to everyone whose work has entertained me, and that's pretty much all of you. I hope you like it. Thanks for reading!

The teaching assistant for Dr. Zahhak’s calculus course was easy on the eyes, but that doesn’t make it any easier for Tavros Nitram to approach him. He watches as Dave Strider reads from a printout and copies out several equations on the board for Zahhak’s class.

He clears his throat and Dave glances his way. “Sup, Nitram.” 

“Hey,” Tavros begins. “I wonder if, do you have, like, office hours or something? For students?”

“Hours, yes. Office, no,” replies Dave. “Wednesdays from 10 to 11:30 in the 2nd floor lounge in the science center. Something I can help you with?”

“Oh. I have another class then,” Tavros says. “I’m not sure I’m keeping up with the new material. I can ask Dr. Zahhak, I guess.”

“You could. Or, I tell you what. I live in the faculty residences just off campus. Building 2, apartment 1, first floor on the left. Why don’t you come over Thursday before class and we can try to troubleshoot your work.” 

Tavros’s face is flushed with relief. “You mean it, you’d help me out?”

“Yeah, no sweat,” Dave says. “Come at, like, one o'clock. Here, pass me your phone. If you need help with numbers, you’re going to need my... digits. Yeahhhhhh!” He flicks his head, and the shades he’d propped in his hair land perfectly over his eyes.

“Good one,” says Tavros happily. Dave really is nice.

\--

Tavros spreads out his notes and textbook, then drums his fingers on the dining table. Dave Strider’s apartment in the faculty residence quad is modest: some heavy, carved furniture that clearly came with the place, a carpet somewhat the worse for wear. Dave’s added a widescreen TV, a couple of gaming systems, big stereo speakers. A window looks out over a pair of apple trees. Tavros hears his math T.A. push a few buttons on a microwave, and soon the aroma of butter-flavored popcorn fills the dining room.

A series of framed black and white photos on one wall catches his eye. At first Tavros thinks they’re just abstract art, but then his perception shifts and he realizes he’s looking at extreme close-ups of a human figure. A male figure. Tavros looks. There’s a flexed bicep tattooed with two interlocking gears and something else he can’t quite make out. Another photo is of the knuckles and fingers of a hand, fine black hairs dusting the skin. What looks like someone from the back or side, a toned torso curving toward a nude hip and thigh. Or maybe... two someones. Each detail emphasized and captured in grays that shimmer almost silver. 

Tavros finds his skin prickling with goosebumps. He imagines himself in the model’s place. He flexes his arm.

Dave returns with Cokes and a bowl of popcorn. “All right, bro. Let’s see how far you got with Tuesday’s worksheet.”

“You like photography?” Tavros asked.

Strider glances up at the wall. “I guess I’ve messed around with an SLR from time to time. There’s a darkroom in the basement of the fine arts building—you know, for developing film. Old school. Not an entirely lost art.”

Tavros blinks. “You took those? You’re, um, you’re really good.”

“Thanks. It’s a gamble, sometimes. You have an idea of what kind of image you’re trying to make, and sometimes when you develop it, it might even match what you had in your head. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s crap. Sometimes it surprises you. You control what you can, and then you’ve got to just trust the process.”

“Seems like a lot of trouble to go through when you can just—” Tavros mimes holding up a phone and tapping the screen.

“Sure,” says Strider. “But sometimes a subject you care about is worth the extra time it takes to really see.” He winks. “Okay, problem set number one. Walk me through your reasoning.”

\--

“Pop quiz,” announces Dr. Zahhak, and 26 voices groan in unison. Tavros takes a deep breath and thinks back to something Dave said earlier that day at the dining table. “Take one step at a time. Show every step of your work. Make sure you get credit for what you know, even if you’re not sure about the whole thing.”

Four days later, grades are posted on the department’s web page. Tavros logs in and sees he scored 81% - a solid 9 percentage points up from his last one. He takes out his phone and texts Dave the great news.

He’s not checking his phone every 5 minutes, he’s really not, but when it buzzes as he enters the dining hall that evening, his heart leaps a little. There’s a reply from Dave.

you the man now T  
the coolest of calculus cucumbers or calculucumbers or whatever the shit  
anyway proud of ya bro

Tavros screenshots it and saves it to his Dropbox.

\--

He’s supposed to be memorizing Spanish verbs, but instead he’s leaning against a tree in the academic quad, sketching with soft pencils in his graph paper notebook. He thinks about the photos at Dave’s place. He’s looking at one hand, drawing with the other. It’s hard to make the knuckles look right. His hands look babyish, not veined and strong like the man’s hand in the photograph. When his friends run up to drag him off to film class, he hastily slams his notebook shut and changes the subject when they try to peek.

\--

“All right,” says Karkat Vantas, snapping his fingers twice to get his film class to settle down. “We’re about to watch a lesser-known classic. Try not to forget what we’ve been discussing. Twice a week. All semester. What sets the story in motion? What does each character want? Everyone wants something.” The lecturer continues talking as he lowers the windowshades. “What marks the climax of Act 1? Don’t rely on your memory, take notes.” He turns off the overhead light and starts the video.

Tavros finds his mind wandering. The German tourist’s husband has ditched her at a desert truck stop with only her suitcase, which turns out to be full of the husband’s clothes. Tavros scribbles about protagonists and motives in his notebook. A door opens in the back of the classroom, and light from the hallway briefly shines across the students until someone shuts it again. Tavros looks around and notices Dave Strider, who’s now standing with Vantas at the back of the room. Their heads lean close in whispered conversation as they watch the film. Vantas stabs the air with a finger to make a point.

With a start, Tavros realizes that Dave has looked his way. Shit, had he been staring? His T.A. nods at him. Tavros waves feebly, then whips his head back toward the screen.

After 30 minutes, Vantas says, “Okay, let’s pause here.” He stops the video and turns on the lights. Dave is sitting in the back row with his feet up on a chair. “Who thinks they know where this story is going? What’s going to happen to our German tourist? What about Brenda?”

“Brenda’s husband is going to apologize,” suggests John Egbert.

“Okay, could be he has a change of heart,” says Vantas. “Other possibilities?”

“Jasmin is going to hitch a ride with a trucker to the city, then take the next flight home,” says Jade Harley.

“That would be the sensible thing to do,” says Vantas. “But I’ll remind you all of what the great philosopher John Lennon said. ‘Life is what happens to you while you’re making other plans.’ Sometimes plans go splat and you have to improvise. Let’s watch.” He snaps off the light and presses play.

When Tavros looks at his graph paper notes later, the lower half of the page is filled with doodles: eyes, and hands, and faces in aviator shades. Shit, he’d really zoned. There was something about magic tricks. He isn’t even sure how the movie had ended. When the lights came back on, Dave was already gone.

\--

The next day, after calculus class, Tavros catches up with Dave and gives him a playful punch in the arm. “Hey, bro,” says the grad student. “You’re figuring this all out.”

“It’s definitely thanks to you,” says Tavros. “I think I’m beginning to get it.”

“Cool, I’m glad. Just take it one step at a time.”

“Thanks, I will. Um,” he adds, “I saw you sitting in on film class. Do you like movies? They’re showing some ‘80s films at the student center tomorrow night. If you want to go. Or just hang out.” He tries to look casual.

Dave looks slightly taken aback, but he’s smiling. “Aw, sounds like a blast, but I can’t. I’ve got something else going on. But I’ll see you in class next week, okay?” Another student comes up to ask him about the next week’s assignment, and Tavros senses that the moment has passed.

He can’t wait until Tuesday’s class. He decides it’s time to improvise.

\--

Dave Strider works under the glow of a red bulb. He carefully agitates the chemical bath with a pair of tongs and watches as forms began to take shape on the photographic paper. A stubbled jawline, the whorl of an ear. The beginnings of a smile. Dave lifts the print out, taps it carefully to remove the extra developing solution, then slips it into the stop bath. Behind him, several other photos hang on a line, more close-ups of the same face. A few have two faces, mugging for the camera. Karkat had griped at first, as usual, but Dave had kept up a teasing stream of “work it, own it, let’s see those pearly whites,” snapping away like a paparazzo. Finally Karkat began to crack a reluctant smile, then to laugh as Dave turned the camera on the two of them. Dave pressed his lips to Karkat’s cheek as the shutter went click-click-click.

His phone chimes. He resists the urge to look. He moves the final photo into the fixer and grabs a rag to wipe down the counter. The photo is pinned to the line alongside the others, and Dave goes about pouring solutions into screw-top jars and rinsing out the trays.

Finally, he checks his messages. “WHERE YOU AT, STRIDER?” He taps out “brt 10 min <<3>” and puts the phone in his jacket pocket. When he steps out of the darkroom, blinking as his eyes adjust, Tavros Nitram is lingering in the hallway.

“Nitram, you taking art classes now?” Strider flips the sign on the door from “In Use, Please Knock and Wait” to “Available,” then smiles at his student. “How’s it going?”

“Dave, uh,” Tavros stammers. He’s clutching his backpack by the straps. “Do you, um, how are you, first of all, then, do you have a sec?”

“First of all, I’m perpetually awesome, thanks, and sure I have a couple of minutes. What’s up?” Strider slings his messenger bag over his shoulder and gestures for Tavros to walk with him. “Making sense of calculus yet?”

“I, that’s just it, I’m not sure I’m, like, getting my head around it?” says Tavros. “I could use, um, some more tutoring help, maybe? If that’s okay, I mean, I could come by your place again or something,” he says, trying not to lose his nerve before Strider’s steady gaze.

They reach the main door. Strider shades his face with his hand and scans the parking lot. A little gunmetal gray two-seat convertible is idling in a fire lane. “Hmm, okay. Look. I’m around Saturday morning, doing stuff around the house. Why don’t you swing by around ten and we’ll review. But put some effort into it yourself ahead of time. You got this, bro.” He claps Tavros on the back encouragingly, and Tavros’s eyes widen.

Tavros nods. “Okay, Saturday. Great. Uh, okay, thanks.” He watches as Strider lopes down the steps of the art building, walks across the lawn, and hops over the door into the passenger seat of the convertible. Tavros hugs his bag to his chest as the car pulls away.

\--

“I think one of Zahhak’s students is crushing on me.”

“On you? Inconceivable.”

“I do not think that word means what you think it means.”

“When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean.”

“That’s not in The Princess Bride.”

“Gold star, boy genius. Alice in Wonderland.” 

“Pfft. Off with your head.”

His boyfriend’s eyes gleam and flick down. “Off with your—“ 

Dave rolls over and kisses him. “Just stick around the house Saturday morning, could you?”

\--

Friday night rolls around.

“Tav, come out with us. It’s movie night. We’re sneaking in snacks.”

“You guys go ahead. I’ve got this thing I gotta do.”

Headphones on. The world disappears. He puts a few favorite tracks on shuffle and picks up a pen.

\--

On Saturday morning, Tavros bikes the short distance from campus to the faculty residences. He’s early, and walks his bike under maple trees under a sky streaked with high cirrus clouds. Someone’s wind chimes sound nearby. He can smell toast and coffee as he passed by the open windows of a garden apartment. Three or four kids kick a soccer ball across the quad, laughing and shouting. 

He locks his bike to a rack and hesitates. The words that flowed out of his heart and onto his graph paper the night before now seem childish. But Strider – Dave – he’ll see, he’ll understand, won’t he? Tavros steels his nerve and walks toward Dave’s building.

Tavros rings the doorbell. “Just a sec,” calls a voice, and then Strider is opening the door. “Hey, Nitram, come on in.” He’s dressed for chores, wearing a t-shirt and paint-spattered jeans with a rip in the knee. A blob of paint smudges his cheekbone. It’s disarming. Tavros pushes down the urge to reach out and brush it away. 

“Orange juice? Apple juice?” Dave says, walking back toward the dining room where they had worked before.

“Just water, thanks,” says Tavros. He looks around. A door is open that he hadn’t noticed on his previous visit. Dropcloths cover the floor, and the walls are marked off in blue painter’s tape. A breeze carries the odor of drying paint through the apartment. Strider washes his hands in the kitchen sink and fills a glass from the tap. 

“Know anything about fractals?” he says to Tavros, taking a seat. “I found a pattern online by a guy who painted a Menger sponge on his wall. Figured it was a good excuse to try it myself. And our home office needed a makeover anyway. Did you give the homework a shot?”

Tavros feels his stomach flutter. It’s now or never. “Actually, I. I guess. I didn’t come to talk about math.” He reaches into his bookbag for the graph paper he had folded into a tight packet. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

Dave’s expression is indecipherable. “Of course, dude, you can talk to me. What’s up?”

Tavros feels heady with recklessness. He knows he’s going way, way off script. He unfolds the graph paper but doesn’t look at it. “Um, okay. I know you like rap, so. Okay.”

Though some say sums should summarize my attention  
I would be divided if I couldn’t mention  
The sum of my feelings that strive to express  
A new calculation that maybe impresses  
A mathematician with deep sense of rapture  
For your heart not your mind is that which I’m after  
I mean, if you’re feeling my real invitation  
Could we two be two in a one-on-one equation

Tavros stops. It had made more sense last night. 

“Whoa.”

Dave stares at him.

There is a long and suffocating silence. Tavros realizes he has made a grave miscalculation. 

“It made more sense last night,” he says. He drops his forehead onto the dining table. He’s frantically running through the past two weeks in his head, wondering where he went wrong. The silence spreads across the room, into his ears, his chest. 

“Hang on,” says Dave. He stands and walks down a hallway. Knocks on a door, murmurs something. A man’s voice replies. Tavros freezes; he hadn’t known anyone else was in the apartment.

Dave comes back to the kitchen. “Nitram, let’s get some fresh air for a minute. Bring your stuff.”

They sit on the front steps. The gunmetal gray convertible is parked at the curb.

“Dude,” begins Dave, gently. “Tavros. I’m flattered. I really am. But. I can’t go out with you.”

Tavros feels abruptly nauseous. “I thought... I thought you liked. Um, guys.”

“Well,” says Dave. He pushes back his hair with one hand. “I do. But I’m your teacher. It wouldn’t be appropriate.”

“You’re a teaching assistant. And you’re not that much older than me. And... I like you.” The earth stubbornly refuses to open up and swallow him. There is no mercy.

“Tavros,” repeats Dave. “You’re an awesome person. But I don’t date undergrads, and anyway, I’m taken.” He pauses and shrugs. “It’s just not going to be a thing that happens. I’m sorry.”

The front door opens again, and Karkat Vantas steps out. He’s in a tank top and cargo shorts. On his bicep is tattooed a pair of interlocking gears. In the flesh, it’s easier to make out the red shape beneath them: a heart entwined with a diamond. “Hey, Nitram,” he says, taking a seat on the step beside Dave. His eyes are kind. 

Tavros looks rapidly from Dave to the tattoo to Karkat and back to Dave. The world tilts. He stands up too fast and sees stars. “I have to go,” he says, grabbing his backpack.

\--

Karkat watches him nearly stumble in his hurry to unchain the bike and flee. “Poor little dude. I wouldn’t be 19 again for the world.”

Dave sighs. “I feel like I just drop-kicked his guinea pig into a tar pit.”

“He’ll live. Too bad he has such shit taste in guys. You monster.”

“Have a heart.”

\--

 

Pedals spin. He’s flying through campus, past his dorm, past the Science Center.

He can’t go back to that class. How could he be so stupid. Why didn’t he see it.

He takes the long loop around the back of campus. Past food service delivery docks. Past dumpsters.

He just wants. To be seen. The way Dave sees.

He pumps the pedals, exhausting himself. He’s thirsty. 

But what Dave wants to see isn’t him. It will never be him.

He finds himself back at the art building.

He just wants to know what it feels like to be that loved.

\--

The door to the darkroom is ajar, but at first Dave thinks nothing of it as he flips the light switch and begins to unpin his photos from the drying line. He frowns. Something isn’t right. He goes over his mental inventory. Back muscle studies, check. Lighting experiments, check. Even some of the close-ups of Karkat are there. But there’s not a single photo of the two of them on the line.

**Author's Note:**

> Once upon a time, Dave and Karkat decided that <3 was only part of how they feel about each other, so they added a <> around the edges. <<3>
> 
> Title from The Police. The film is Bagdad Cafe.


End file.
